That’s what happened with Memphis’ Tony Allen, arguably the best perimeter defender in the league — Chris Paul was driving the lane, Tony Allen leapt and got caught in the air, threw his leg out and it kicked CP3 right across the face. At first glance the referees called it a Flagrant 1 but after review upgraded it to a Flagrant 2 and ejected Allen (who had already apologized to Paul).

Was it intentional? No. Still, he kicked a guy in the face and for my money the referees got it right — that had to be an ejection. Just had to be. That said, because of the lack of intent one would hope the league would not fine or add to the punishment here.

Not a basketball play.. I see kicking out your leg to purposely get a kicked ball but that high? Very dangerous. Chris Paul needs to get out of the habit of flailing his arms. I love him as a player but man I’m tired of seeing that extra bullcrap acting. He hits him in the face but arms flailing away makes me cringe

Yes, Tony Allen kicked him. It’s not a dirty play. Its just an accident. He was only trying to block the ball because he thought Chris Paul might have a passing lane. I can understand the flagrant call. This was not intentional at all though. These type of freak plays happens in sports.

Intent shouldn’t matter, because at the end of the day you can’t always read it (I don’t believe TA intentionally kicked him in the face, but I’m not in his mind). If a guy goes up for a layup and you go for the foul and knock him to the ground hard, your intent may not have been to injure but you hit a vulnerable player and the penalty should flow out of that. Here, whatever he was trying to do, Allen got his foot up at face level and kicked a guy driving the lane. Malicious or not you get ejected for that.

Hmm. Fair enough, but can’t we reasonably assume that TA was aware of what he was doing? He stuck his leg out to the left because he knew that was the direction CP was going. Clearly it was meant to physically impede his progress. If Paul is standing straight up and takes a shin to the chest, it’s a run-of-the-mill personal foul. The fact that the foot ended up in his face is somewhat ancillary. It seems like an opportunity for the league to exemplify defense via swinging, airborne legs is a no-no. Based on that (and the fact that a premier player was on the receiving end), I would think Stern would deem TA’s intention was “malicious”, and he would face suspension.

miamatt - Nov 19, 2013 at 12:04 PM

This one goes in the category of reckless but not malicious. You can’t kick your leg out at chest/face level and cry innocent if somebody gets thwopped in the kisser. That being said, I think Allen was trying to cut off a passing lane, or at worst give a foul to stop CP3 from scoring.

The ejection was justified, given how games are being officiated these days, but this play doesn’t warrant anything more at this time.